OOBJOB12@Hakan.Swe: OK, boys, let's let 'er fly. Log on, fire back some Tennessee courage and say things you will regret later. It will make for a better read. Do it for the children. Every click goes to charity.

LOOBJOB12: Mario! Sorry about the dreadful year. I haven't witnessed a train wreck like this since Greg Norman's final round at the '96 Masters. This is "Gigli" bad. 18-day-old trout bad.

Mario66: OK!!! Let's face it; we were doomed from the start. No goaltending, young players, old players, two completely different coaches, just a mess. Who knew Sergei Gonchar and Zigmund Palffy weren't warriors? Mark Recchi is minus-27. That wins the Las Vegas Invitational most years! Didn't John LeClair once score 50 goals? Who didn't project Maxime Talbot as a young Guy Carbonneau? Craig Patrick is a genius.

LOOBJOB: Ron Francis! Great speech at your ceremony in Raleigh. You are so smart, it makes me sick. Commissioner? President of an NHL team? GM? Consort Hair Spray model with Dan Patrick? You have Dan Patrick hair! "Anchorman"? Gouuuuulet!

RonnyFranchise: I'm being groomed to take over for Jim Rutherford here in Carolina. My family likes the area. Good weather, great golf courses, huge bugs. Love the bugs!

LivingOffmyLastname: Why can't we get players like Ron Francis?

Mario66: I will now have Phil Bourque spear me in the Adam's apple with a broken Koho.

And later...

Wyzerguy19: Brett Lebda and someone called Johan Franzen are playing more minutes than me. What do you think?

LivingOffmyLastname: I'll give you Crosby for Lebda straight up.

LOOBJOB: Between Brett Hull's 741, your 685-690 goals, and Dave Andreychuk's 640, that will be quite a Hall of Fame goal-scoring class in a few years.

If anyone connected to hockey in Pittsburgh doesn't know about Craig Patrick and his personal demons with alcohol, they've been sleeping under a rock for the last 25 years.

Patrick's attitude toward media, co-workers, and fans has been out-of-line for years and goes unchecked because he's a Patrick, was able to help Lemieux get two Stanley Cups and Baldwin/Marino had no idea about building a winning organization.

The days of Patrick as GM in Pittsburgh are waning, if the rumors are true. Lemieux has gotten considerable pressure from certain investors to change course in the front office.

There are a number of young, highly qualified hockey men that want this job because of the opportunity to work with Crosby, Malkin, Fleury, Whitney, and other promising prospects.

Steve Tambellini and Rick Dudley are the top candidates if I was hiring.

Sooner rather than later, Patrick will make it official, he's going to move on and Lemieux will take over as GM with Eddie Johnston and Ed Olczyk as Assistant GMs until new ownership is in place.

I don't expect Patrick to be out of the GM's chair until Lemieux is recovered from the heart surgery.

Yeah, despite Mario offering his opinion on personel moves during his playing days (Zubov for Hatcher anyone), taking on a fulltime GM position doesn't seem like something he'd care to get invovled with.

The last two times I've gone to games, I've heard a lot of talk among some of the more knowledgable regulars that there seem to be some legs to this notion of Mario taking over as interim GM along with someone like EJ.

As far as Patrick goes, hey, you wouldn't have been able to find a bigger fan of his over the last several years than myself. I thought the guy pulled off a lot of great moves, and I'm not even talking about the obvious stuff (Francis, etc.). That stuff was before my time as a diehard Pens fan.

I thought the acquisition of Kasparaitis back in 1996 (was that really nine years ago?) was genius. And I'm still wondering what he gave the Florida GM to convince them to give up Barnes AND Woolley for Chris Wells. The trade that brought Kovy was terrific. And for as much as I loved watching Stu Barnes, I thought dealing him for Barnaby was a great move in 1998. Barnes was on the decline a little and that team desperately needed a more physical element. The following year, he got Boughner for Skrbek. And I still don't know how he managed to convince Ottawa to not only take a declining pain in the *** like Barrasso and still get a serviceable d-man (Laukkanen) and a decent goalie (Tugnutt) back in return. Plus he had the foresight to bring Straka back on a camp tryout and pick up Lang on waivers from LA.

But I've really lost faith the last couple of years. I just don't think the guy knows the modern NHL like other GMs do. He seems behind the times. There were reports that even after signing Andre Roy to that ridiculous deal, he still wanted to bring in at least two other one-dimensional goon types. I've heard that he truly believed after the fact that Gonchar was the player who always carried the puck up the ice for the Caps, and he had to be reminded by other front office personnel that it was not Gonchar but Bondra.

I've also heard that his relationship with Mario isn't quite as buddy-buddy as some people believe. The major point of contention centered around Fleury. CP was told to leave money in the budget in the event that the team needed Fleury beyond the 25-game bonus trigger, and he didn't, instead spending some of that money on Odelein and Poapst.

Look, I loved some of the signings this summer as much as anyone. I thought Gonchar and Palffy were great moves. I thought bringing in Recchi in prior to the lockout was smart. And I even understood the rationale behind Leclair.

Unfortunately, CP lost sight of the plan. I think the idea was to bring in a few guys to supplement the roster and continue along the rebuilding path. Unfortunately, he got away from it with the signing of guys like Odelein, Poapst, Roy and maybe even Leclair (to a point). Compounding the problem were the multi-year deals he gave some of these guys, and that's a main reason why I hope he doesn't come back.

I agree with Stoosh on this. CP did some great things in the past, but its never been more obvious that his time has passed. I actually think Stoosh gives CP a little more credit than I would. You know how the saying goes, even a broken clock is right twice a day. For the 16+ years he has been GM, he had to have done some things right.

I think CP is guilty of trying to reach into the bag of tricks too often. The last 5 years or so he has been trying to find the hidden gem..... the one player on waivers that will have needed that change of scenery and flourish. Robert Lang, for instance. But for that one Robert Lang, we signed 20 Stephane Richer's and Steve Poapst's. And you see where it has gotten us.

perhaps the analogy here is something akin to the Pirates. They sold off (traded) near their entire payroll in the seasons following the 90-92 division winning runs. That rebuilding in turn has now lasted 13 years -- a time period the Pens can ill afford to lose that long. They earn their money by putting fans in the seats -- recall even when the Pens were in the midst of the 11 year playoff run, there were still empty seats. Fast forward to 01-02; 02-03, 03-04. Losing seasons, and attendance fell off even more. Sure, 05-06 has seen more sellouts than those three seasons combined. But the on-ice product has seen attendence slow down as the seasonhas gone on.

Since the Pens rely so heavily on gate revenue, a new direction in the GM chair might very well be necessary. Even if CP doens't get fired, he still has to leave at some point on his own, either for his own advancement or retirement. The picture is not all bad, as we have seen with Pens drafted and signed talent winning down at WBS the last few years. The question is whether that AHL success can translate to the NHL in 06-07.

And for God's sake, come up with a better marketing idea than "X-Force"